A terminal in an idle mode needs to constantly perform cell reselection, so as to camp on a cell with a higher priority or better channel quality.
In the idle mode, the terminal triggers the cell reselection by monitoring measurement values of a serving cell and a neighboring cell. Core content of a cell reselection criterion is: If there is a cell whose channel quality is better than that of a serving cell, and the cell with the better channel quality keeps the better channel quality within a period of time, the terminal reselects the cell with the better channel quality.
In an LTE (English: Long Term Evolution, Chinese: Long Term Evolution) system, different types of cells coexist and form a heterogeneous network. The heterogeneous network includes cells with different sizes of coverage areas and different types of cells, for example, may include a macro cell (English: macro cell), a micro cell (English: micro cell), a pico cell (English: pico cell), a femto cell (English: femto cell), and the like. A coverage area of a macro cell may include a micro cell, a pico cell, a femto cell, or the like.
Currently, a network system architecture is increasingly complex, and performing cell reselection according only to the current cell reselection criterion is inapplicable to this increasingly complex network system architecture. Therefore, a corresponding solution is urgently needed, so that the terminal reselects a cell as suitable as possible.